A blog featuring Praise, Commentary, News, Silliness and Resentment regarding the Green Bay Packers and the University of Wisconsin Football and Men's Basketball Teams. Plus, musings on sports generally.
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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Intra-Family Plagarism

Like most of you, I have been reduced to reading newspaper reports about the Badgers' exhibition games. I was hoping to follow the progress of last night's game against Carroll College via the miracle of the internet on ESPN, but they pretended the exhibition game didn't exist. The newspaper reports in the Madison and Milwaukee papers, basically said "we were down in the first half, big men not looking good on defense, missing shots, went small, got lead back, stayed pretty close until we went on a run relatively late in the second half to win by 20." This, of course, is not particularly interesting. What is interesting is how different individual players played, who looked decent and in what manner. Articles noted that Flowers played well, that Tucker shot poorly, and that most of our big men did not play all that much. Seeking further information, I consulted the elder fool for a more in depth breakdown. He attended the game, and provided the following (I know you're not supposed to use quotation marks for block quotes, but I'm doing it anyway):

"The two guys who probably looked best were Landry and Flowers, who really seems to have made a serious step forward in his offensive game. I guess the plan is that Flowers is now the starting point guard, allowing Kam to move back to his more natural position of shooting guard. This is also the reason, according to some, why the development of Hughes and perhaps Perry is considered important, so that Flowers needn't be on the court all the time to allow Kam to play the two. Flowers looks much more aggressive on offense, very much under control and confident. He seems to be looking to use his quickness to attack the basket. His shooting remains solid. Landry is going to be a monster before his time at UW is done. He just looks athletic, very physical, and like somebody who is intimidated by precisely nobody. He had a nasty alley-oop dunk last night. He really got up high and threw it down hard. Although he also did miss on another dunk. Kam looked good. Bohannon looked good. He can clearly shoot the lights out and he has plenty of quickness and ball handling ability. Court said he was one of the players in the slam dunk contest at family fun night. Gullikson got some minutes and looked plenty physical and tough. Butch looked fine, looks physically stronger. Bo just seemed to want to stay smaller. Perhaps that's also a function of wanting to get the young guys some minutes during an exhibition game. Hughes looked good, but also young. I mean, he clearly is an excellent athlete, quick, good handle, but sometimes he seems like he makes questionable decisions and gets a little out of control. He attacked the basket a couple times, getting there very nicely but then having to try to finish with some fairly hilarious maneuvers, neither of which worked. But he also hit a three pointer while being fouled and had one very impressive pass in the lane to Alando. Stiemsma looked rugged and tough. His Casillas-esque mohawk is awesome. He, Butch, and Landry all blocked a shot or two, but Carroll was obviously very short. But they have some guys who can do a couple things."

He then related his disappointment and horror at recognizing certain people sitting in the new $10,000 courtside seats, and concluded with the following:

"Overall, the Badgers looked listless in the first half, much more together in the second half. Krabben[*#%!] also looked good. Yeah, most of Alando's shots were jumpers and, like most of the team, he was off in the first half."

Hmm... I hope Alando's develops two-guard skills, but you'd still hope that he'd be pushing it inside against a team who's tallest player is 6'7". Mix the inside with the outside. Maybe exhibition games are the time to practice your outside shooting, though. Also, it seems like any of our guards could be a point (that is, in our offense, the person who brings the ball up the court), so if setting aside those duties leads to Kam getting more points, I'm all for it.Anyone know where Mercer is? (Ok, it's in Georgia). Was it founded by my seventh grade math teacher?Finally, in re this weekend's football, death to Iowa and the Viqueens. May Dirk Terentz be whazzed upon from a considerable height by a former Iowa protege, as he has whazzed upon Barry (also a former Iowa protege). May Brad Childress's porn star mustache curdle in disappointment.An end to the tyranny of Iowa City and the Metrodome!